No Change in Obama Administration Links with Terrorism

A former FBI translator is blowing the whistle on a vast criminal conspiracy linking high-ranking U.S. government officials to Eurasian and Middle Eastern espionage activity in the United States. Sibel Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblower's Coalition, recently testified in a case before the Ohio Elections Commission and in an interview with the American Conservative, revealing shocking details involving both Bush and Obama administrations.

In the interview Edmonds describes her seven-month experience (in 2001 and 2002) as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI. During that time she discovered then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, had been leaking highly classified defense documents to Turkish, Israeli, and Pakistani foreign agents working under diplomatic cover in their respective embassies. He did so with the help of two Pentagon officials, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, who collected personal dossiers to bribe other Pentagon officials to give classified documents to Grossman. Grossman used the information to facilitate such criminal activities as drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. According to Edmonds, Grossman was highly compensated for his efforts.

Grossman also garnered the assistance of U.S. Congressmen to obtain classified information and influence policymaking decisions. Then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), Bob Livingston (R-La.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) played active roles according to Edmonds, as did the Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, and other Illinois State Senators. Edmonds says that the center of Turkish criminal activity in the United States is Chicago, which explains the link to so many officials from Illinois. Her coalition contacted then-Senator Barak Obama about the illegal activity but received no response, even though he was from Chicago and on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs as well as the Foreign Relations Committee. As President, Obama has appointed former Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, which Edmonds says indicates any change Obama is promising will not be for the better. Emanuel has close ties with Daley, Hastert, and other Illinois officials involved in these alleged espionage activities.

Obama certainly did not change the gag order imposed on Edmonds under the executive "states secret privilege" by the Bush administration's Department of Justice when she was fired from the FBI after filing criminal allegations against a co-worker in the linguistics department. That translator was the wife of Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson who Edmonds says had ties to suspect Turkish organizations. Dickerson himself had worked under Grossman when the latter was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey from 1994 until 1997. An international espionage scandal involving both men ended their work in that country and brought them back to the States where Grossman was rewarded with the third-highest ranking office at the State Department and Dickerson was given a job at the Pentagon.

It was then that Grossman began to coordinate weapons and drug trafficking between the United States, Turkey, Bosnia, and central Asia using NATO airplanes. He, Feith and Perle also entered negotiations with Turkish interest groups to arrange a U.S. invasion of Iraq or the establishment of a Turkish protectorate. Former Secretary of State James Baker and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft were influential in those communications, says Edmonds, but the terrorist attacks on 9/11 interrupted their plans. Edmonds also indicates that U.S. Intelligence was supporting al-Qaeda interests prior to 9/11.

Edmonds broke the DOJ gag order to answer a court-issued subpoena from the Ohio Elections Commission and issue a sworn deposition. That case was brought by U.S. Representative Jean Schmidt, charging her 2008 independent challenger, David Krikorian, with libel when he alleged during the campaign that Schmidt took "blood money" from Turkish interest groups donating to her campaign. Edmonds testified in August, and the case was heard on September 3, though no decision was reached. The Commission delayed the case until October 1 when Krikorian says he hopes that Edmonds will give testimony in person.

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